What the Bride Didn't Know

‘Rather have it in my mouth.’ He squirted shampoo in his palm and raised his hands to his head.

‘Are you posing on purpose?’

‘Are you looking on purpose?’ It seemed like a reasonable reply. ‘Because I’ve no objection. You want a closer look, all you gotta do is say.’ He reached for the shower door and smirked as Lena squeaked a protest and fled. ‘Thought you were fearless.’

‘That was before I got scarred for life. Now I’m wary. Don’t want to get scarred for life twice.’

‘Amen to that,’ he muttered, all playfulness gone as he shoved his head beneath the spray again, the better to chase away the image of Lena on her back in the mud, her guts hot and slippery against his hands while the world around them exploded. Scrub that memory from his mind.

Good if he could.

‘What kind of baklava did you want?’ asked Lena.

‘Is there a mixed plate?’

‘I can ask.’

He heard Lena ordering the food.

He tried to think about the real reason they were in Turkey. Get Lena’s eyes on Jared and Jared’s on her. Let them realise that everyone was okay and then get Lena the hell out of harm’s way before Jared could tear him a new one.

Simple plan.

Didn’t take a genius to know that the execution was going to be a bitch.

* * *

Trig emerged from the bathroom squeaky clean and somewhat calmer about sharing a hotel room with Lena. Lena had the television on and was standing to one side of it, flicking through the channels. She glanced at him, eyes wary. He thought she had relaxed a bit. Possibly because he had his clothes on.

‘Food’ll be here in an hour,’ she said. ‘I thought you’d take longer. I thought I might soak in the spa.’

Soak. Right. Lena was about to get naked and soapy not five steps from where he was standing, and he was going to ignore her and not even think about palming the bulge in his pants, not even just to rearrange it.

‘I need a walk,’ he muttered. And tried not to slam the door on his way out.

* * *

Lena sagged against the nearest wall the minute the door closed behind him. She didn’t know what to make of Trig’s moods these days—one minute teasing, short-tempered the next. That was her bailiwick, not Trig’s. Trig was the even-tempered one, rock-steady in any crisis.

Calm, even when she’d been flat on her back in the sticky grey clay of East Timor and he’d been holding her guts in place with his hands. Calm when Jared had skidded in beside him and told him to get out of the way and Trig had said no, just no, but Jared had backed off, and gone and stolen transport and got them to safety while Trig kept Lena alive.

Trig, steady as you please, as the world around her had turned cold and grey.

‘Don’t you,’ he’d said, his voice hard and implacable in her ear. ‘Fight, damn you. You always do.’

She’d fought.

She was still fighting.

Her injuries. Her reliance on others.

Her feelings for Trig and the memory of his cheek against hers and the gutted murmur of his voice when he’d thought her unconscious.

‘Stay with me, Lena. Don’t you dare go where I can’t follow.’

Closest he’d ever come to saying he had feelings for her that weren’t exactly brotherly.

Once upon a time, maybe, yeah, she’d have been all over that. All over him if he’d given her enough encouragement.

But now?

No way.

Because what could she offer him now? She who could barely hold herself together from one day to the next. She whose default setting ran more towards lashing out at people than to loving them.

And then there was the matter of her not so minor physical injuries. A body as beautiful as Trig’s deserved a beautiful body beneath it, not one like hers, all scarred and barely working. No babies from this body, and Trig knew it. He’d been there when the doctor had broken that news, only it was hardly news to Lena because given the mess her body had been in at the time she’d already figured as much.

It had been news to Trig though, and she’d plucked at a thread in the loose-woven hospital blanket and watched beneath lowered lashes as he’d dropped his head to the web of his hands and kept it there for the duration of the doctor’s explanation. No comment from him at all when he’d finally lifted his head, just a stark, shattered glance in her direction before he’d swiftly looked away.

Not pity. He didn’t do pity.

It had looked a lot like grief.

A bottle of red wine stood on the counter above the little hotel-room fridge. Lena cracked it and poured herself a generous glass full. She picked through her suitcase for a change of clothes and took those and the wine with her to the bathroom.

Water would help. Water always helped her relax and think clearly.

Find Jared. That was her goal.

Keep Lena out of trouble. She was pretty sure that was Trig’s goal.

And then, once the world was set right, she and Trig could find a new way of communicating. One that didn’t involve him being overprotective and her being defensive. One that involved more honesty and less bickering. Lena sipped at her wine and stared pensively at the slowly filling tub.

One that involved a little more wholly platonic appreciation for the person he was.

THREE

Trig returned just as their dinner arrived. He gave her a nod, tipped the man for his service and started moving dishes from the room-service cart to the little table for two over by the window.

Lena poured him a wine and another one for herself. She didn’t ask him about his walk straight away. Given the tension that had followed him into the room, she figured she might hold that totally innocuous question in reserve.

‘You taken any painkillers?’ he asked, not an unreasonable question given how much of the wine she’d drunk. What could she say? It had been a long bath.

‘Not yet. Tonight I’m rocking the red wine instead.’

‘Any particular reason why?’

‘Long day.’ You. ‘New city.’ You. Never want to be on the wrong side of you.